The Switch

71

In the late afternoon, the train pulled into Back Bay station in Boston. The two men got off. The station stank of diesel. The platform was crowded with people who were just getting back to Boston from meetings in New York or maybe Washington. Like a herd of cattle, they all migrated in close pack formation toward the exit doors, the escalator up to the station’s main level, and then the inevitable Darwinian struggle to hail a cab outside on Dartmouth Street, where there seemed to be no cab stand, just the occasional passing taxi.

Tanner wanted to go home and collapse and be done with the insanity of the last two weeks. But he had just one more stop to make.

After five minutes of trying to flag down a cab, Tanner gave up. He turned to Abbott, pointing down the street toward the South End. “Just a couple of blocks that way and then to the left.”

They set off for Tremont Street, Tanner with his dirt-flecked knapsack and Abbott with his briefcase. They walked in silence. That spot on his lower back, the wound that had been bandaged, was throbbing again. It was probably infected. He’d have to take care of it when he had a little time.

In about ten minutes they’d reached the great granite-and-glass insurance company skyscraper that had the SportsClub Boston occupying the northwest corner of its street level with its familiar blue-and-red logo. On the way in Tanner glanced over at the fruit stand, saw Ganesh, and exchanged greetings.

He pulled open a glass door for Will Abbott and followed him into the gym. At the front desk, where members had to swipe their bar-coded card or key fob to gain entry, Will said, “I’m going in with you. Swipe me in as your guest.”

They passed a row of glass-walled offices, the manager and the membership director and so on, and then a kickboxing class or maybe it was a Zumba class; Tanner wasn’t sure of the difference. Music blasted inside the room, but it was muted by the glass walls. They took the stairs down to the men’s locker room.

“Buenas tardes, Mr. Tanner,” said a short, swarthy man wearing a red SportsClub Boston uniform shirt, pushing a cart full of used towels.

“Hey, Ramon,” Tanner said.

In the second bank of lockers he immediately spotted his brass combination lock.

“Right here,” he told Abbott.

It was smuggling the computer out of his office in the gym bag that had first given him the idea. They’d already searched his home, and they’d surely search every inch of Tanner Roast’s offices for the laptop. Leaving it in the office safe — even hidden as it was — wasn’t a good idea.

But the one place where you wouldn’t stash anything of value was a gym locker. He’d gone in with the laptop in his duffel bag and came out with a bag that was about three pounds lighter.

Tanner found his locker, but the brass combination lock was no longer there. He pulled the door open.

The locker was empty.